Tuesday, November 29, 2011

All that's Wrong with Perfume Nowadays

I've given collective thanks, done my small bit with a good cause charity, plan to donate stuff at my local shelter too and you might feel I'm all spic & span and feeling sanctimonious, don't you. Well, I have had a huge rant rising up in me, crazy-bitchy stuff that you like, and waited just till the season of thanks was semi-over to spill it over these pages for your collective head-nodding (or not; read on to find out and feel free to agree or disagree in the comments).



I was aimlessly browsing at Sephora the other day. A precarious walk amidst beauty bombs, it seems. From left to right and top to bottom there were tantalizing promises of a "younger, thinner, prettier you" in the form of spunky beauty tricksters, sparkling baubles and mascaras that promise to vibrate from here to eternity. Even a beauty editor can be taunted into submission, there's so much stuff out there. The perfume aisles at Sephora are of course decked with all the newest, the plastic wrappers almost warm to the touch off the conveyor belt at some far away factory in some exotic locale. And the best-sellers, naturally. I wasn't expecting to find niche stuff. But -in my country at least- they used to carry plenty of the dependable "mainstays"; indeed they continue to carry Chanel No.19 in Eau de Parfum (a brisk seller locally by all accounts), Aliage and White Linen by Lauder and Miss Dior and the rest of the classic Diors. Right?
Well, no. Strike that latter part out (thank you LVMH).

Not only have Sephora boutiques ditched the classic Dior selection they carried (I used to find everything from Dolce Vita to classic Poison to Dune to Diorissimo effortlessly, alongside bestselling J'Adore and Hypnotic Poison), they displayed prominently a bow-style bottle with salmon juice bearing the name Miss Dior! A double take (you can see the eyesore by yourself at left) and a percursory sniff later, I'm convinced my worst instincts weren't wrong: This is Miss Dior Chérie re-incarnated as simply....Miss Dior. Forget about the classic that kickstarted the Dior fragrance line at 1947. Forget all the history, the accolades, the dedicated following, the definition of gardenia-chypre with animalic tendencies. Young ones are condemned to read about Miss Dior in the future and think of this vile, character-less conconction (because yes, even Miss Dior Chérie has been reformulated to blandness!). What the heck, LVMH? You don't take your originator and bury it six feet under. The confusion to the consumer who was lured by the myth of Miss Dior and then hooked on the slutty girliness of the sweet strawberry-patchouli scent of Miss Dior Chérie was a low trick enough (Exploiting the past to sell the present). Talk about pinkification...

Supposedly this weird bottle is a limited edition, as if the Miss Dior Chérie line isn't confusing enough. (The Ukrainian-sounding sales assistant told me that Sephora has dropped the classic MD perfume, of which she was fully aware, off their catalogue, but other stores still carry it). Supposedly the original is going to be sold as Miss Dior L'Original in several stores. But colour me sceptical: This is pretty much the summation of everything that's wrong with Parfums Dior: not an incompetence of the perfumers team, but bad marketing and positioning decisions that in their lust for more profit, more exposure, more easy sales, lose their core values; intergrity, originality, sticking to one's guns.

I know for a fact that the classic Miss Dior sells adequatelly. I also know for a fact that although teenagers are not the demographic aimed at (much as it was the debutante scent of yore), they are not averse to it when given a chance to blind test it; I have personally sprayed the scarf of an unknown teenager girl when asked what I'm using at the ladies' room and though she found the initial blast "heavy"  (notice the vocabulary confusion when trying to describe scent; she meant bitter mossy) she very much liked the effect left on her scarf and carefully noted down the name. But in the end it doesn't matter. Even if the classic Miss Dior didn't sell more than 5 bottles a year at each respective store, a specimen should always be on display because it represents HISTORY. How many of the upstarts can claim that?


To add insult to injury, I have Snooki releasing her own fragrance and on top of that pondificating on perfume for our sakes via quotes and interviews. Snooki, yes, the one from Jersey Shore (if you're European like me, you probably need to check out what the hell this is), about whom I had been bombarded with in press-releases and informercials (what she's using, what she likes, what's her peeing schedule, as if we give a darn), who's going on record saying she only likes sweet stuff: "I don't like anything strong that smells like old ladies. That's why I'm going for the sweet because old ladies don't smell sweet." [from her interesting interview on Allure, which thankfully reveals the girl doesn't know nil shit about fragrance anyway]
Excuse me while I dribble kiwi suryp & smear cupcakes all over myself (as if!) in order to be presentable to the world as the paragon of youthful and alluring. Not.
I mean: kiwi & cupcakes; can you think of a grosser combination of fragrances?

No offence to the girl and you've got to admire perseverance into "making it" in show business, especially when your talons are long enough to make accomplish all those required "moves" rather problematic (if you catch my drift), but how can anyone take style advice from this paragon of elegance and graceful style?
So, in order to have one's say in such matters you have to put down on older women; that always works. No one questions the sagacity of wanting to appear/feel younger, because, well, everybody wants to. Right?

There in a nutshell: two totally unrelated incidents, one gigantic cultural zit turning to a painful boil. Someone needs to lance it, once and for all.

Photo on top by Marilyn Minter. Pic of snooki via hollywoodlife.com

67 comments:

  1. Fabulous article! What a great way for me to start my day. Thank you. Off to google a Jersey Shore video...

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  2. Fiordiligi15:58

    I love it! And just think, when you get to my age, you'll rant even more as you lament Things Past.

    I discovered recently that Harvey Nichols no longer has a Guerlain counter. Talk about Hell Freezing Over.

    Hope you're feeling much better and will send a note soon xxx

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  3. Fragrances that smell like a sweet shop make me feel sick to my stomach, quite literally. *applauds your rant*

    The drive to make everything appeal to as many people as possible (and the general bland-ification of mainstream fragrance houses) saddens me. Chuck on some cheap vanilla 'essence' and be done with it.

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  4. ''I discovered recently that Harvey Nichols no longer has a Guerlain counter. Talk about Hell Freezing Over.''

    tell me about it. what were they thinking? anyway those SAs at the guerlain counter in HN were rubbish.

    very good post. on another note I dont like Sephora. why do you go there? too clinical, uniform, exhibits cosmetics as if you were in a supermarket.

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  5. Anonymous17:04

    I can't find Miss Dior anywhere!
    Only Miss Dior Cherie, and I don't like the smell of it!

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  6. Rant away. Perfumistas everywhere agree!
    So sad about Dior. So right about LVMH. Nothing good happens when a iconic brand gets taken over by shortsighted beancounters who waste away the value of the heritage brand by ruining its good name.

    Thank goodness Hermes has been successfully fending off a takeover (so far)...

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  7. Phew!!! I am SO relieved to find out I'm not the ONLY seriously p***ed off, cranky, crabby bitch on Planet Earth...;-)

    Seriously, I think I had another midlife crisis when I saw that MDC was now being presented as simply Miss Dior. Not just for the sacrilege, but because entire gneerations will now grow up thinking this abomination is the stuff that created a legend in 1947, or that my 17-y-o daughter will think this was Mom's second Grown Up Perfume...(No!)

    Maybe I should write that Perfect Murder story after all...;-)

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  8. Anonymous18:59

    So a kiwi cupcake is called a "Snooki" in America? I'm glad I was in Europe for years, and scared now that I'm back in the USA....And of course, everyone knows LVMH is run by Screwtape and Company!
    -Masha

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  9. Anonymous19:24

    Dear E,

    Amen to everything.

    I stopped paying any attention to new frag releases a while ago. It was just breaking my heart. There is enough depth and history in the "old lady" stuff to keep me interested for a long time.

    Natalia

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  10. Wow, just wow.

    I cannot add to what you've already said, but your words did inspire me to splash on some real Miss Dior. This shit is like Juicy "Couture".

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  11. Rappleyea20:10

    Preach on, Sistah!

    Thank God for Mandy Aftel, Andy Tauer, Laurie Erickson, et al.

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  12. Sombreuil21:00

    *applause*

    I have been looking forward to this rant since your teaser yesterday. More please.

    My mother wore Miss Dior. Damn LVMH to hell! Doesn't Roudnitska deserve better for his contributions to perfumery? At least Chanel are kinder to Beaux.

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  13. Sombreuil21:07

    Sorry - in MD's case I should have said Jean Carles... It's just that Roudnitska's legacy in particular has been so hard done-by, it makes me tremendously sad.

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  14. Unfortunately, the oceans of pink syrups (for the girls) and the buckets of hospital floor cleaners (for the boys) have been polluting the air of US shopping malls for quite a while. The celeb in the ad is just a temporary companion. I think that the "pink cupcake accord" description could pass as a masterpiece of postmodern poetry. Europeans who have so far been spared the indigestible dessert cannot understand the full extent of the horror. But fear not, right now cupcake stores are all the rage in the US, with lines of teenagers dutifully waiting for their fix of saturated fat in pink color. Somebody will certainly introduce the fad overseas.

    Dior's classic had disappeared from US mainstream perfume stores long ago, in line with their progressive debasement. Dior has now started an "exclusive" line, they could have reissued decent copies of the old masterpieces there, as Chanel did. But no.

    cacio

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  15. You are right on the money!!! And Snooki...don't even get me STARTED, ugh and blah!!!!!

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  16. Anonymous01:45

    Which is more wrong: dropping Miss Dior from the lineup at Sephora or the reformulation of Miss Dior Cherie?

    New (original) Miss Dior hasn't been Miss Dior for quite some time! I may actually have more of a problem with Miss Dior Cherie (cherie no more) being redone on the sly, the oddball strawberry top note now removed for a generic effect meant to connote young and classy (for generic classy, see also Chanel 19 Poudre). No one, IFRA or otherwise, made Dior pull that stunt.

    Nikk

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  17. The last time I set foot in a Sephora was last year around Christmas time. Well, I was getting a little bored but was horrified. Horrified on how the classics are pushed to the wayside and the "new classics" are being sprayed on me. I was not happy too be sprayed with the odd combination of Raid, bug spray, and grape syrup.

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  18. LTS,

    thanks, I guess it came from the heart and thus touched a few hearts.

    The JS show is a weird mixture of abomination and fraternity humour, it's so weird it deserves its own cultural entre. I was blissfully oblivious, till that girl thought about releasing her own scent. :/

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  19. D,

    thanks honey, I'm indeed better, so kind of you to ask. Looking forward!

    I usually am not a ranting type, because I associate grouchy with being ungrateful for the good things in one's life (not that that is always the case for everyone, of course, please note!). But sometimes you know some things are so darn stupid you feel you want to smack someone for the stupidity of it all. I guess with the hindsight of maturity the stupidity is even more leaping to the eye!

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  20. D,

    and ooops, really??? HN has no Guerlain counter? WTF???

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  21. GL,

    thanks for chiming in, glad you liked it.

    Nothing wrong with sweet as long as it's measured. A good piece of baklava doesn't need maple syrup and frost on top of it, does it? Same with fragrances.

    I fear it's exactly as you say: Stick to blandness so as to have as many people as possible recognise something familiar and thus augment profit margins. Sad....

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  22. λειντι ντι,

    thanks honey for chiming in and for your kind compliment.
    It's mind-blogging, isn't it? Major store, one would expect a major brand to be adequatelly represented.

    It's not that I like Sephora especially (I used to when they first bursted in the scene, I guess I was swayed by the French prototype which sorta worked). I just happened to browse to check some eyeshadows I had been given as a gift, to see if they did fit me (needed the testers to find out, as no returns on opened products are possible) or I should exchange them for something else. And then, bham, revelations ensued...

    One thing that's rather good is that they leave you alone to smudge and swatch, though, while in our local (packed) Hondos Center there are swarms of (helfup and not so helpful) SAs showing you everything under the sun; it gets disorienting after a while. Maybe I'm picky.

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  23. Barbara,

    if you're in the US then you're in dire straits in that matter, I hear all the classic Diors are hard to find and in fact were so to begin with (for some unfathomable reason, since I know American women who like them very much indeed)
    But I believe there are several online stores which carry the classic Miss Dior still. Escentual.co.uk for one who ship internationally. (not affiliated, just a reputable store I have used myself)

    http://www.escentual.com/dior/miss-dior/10000280/

    Ooops, now I see that the smaller bottles are "out of stock" and only the bigger one is available. Hmmmmm......

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  24. annemariec07:24

    Yes, the word has been creeping out slowly among the blogs that Dior (or its parent) is doing some very strange things: repatriating Miss Dior Cherie by tweaking the formula to produce it in house (rather than acquiring it from the perfume supplier that composed it); selling this as 'Miss Dior'; and leaving the 1947 Miss Dior out in the cold. I have yet to see any bottles of the 1947 fragrance packaged as 'L'Original', but I presume it will happen soon. How can they sell two quite distinct perfumes under the same name?

    It is no surprise that the niche houses are picking up so much business.

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  25. Ggs,

    exactly. I don't know what possessed them! They had one of the benchmarks of modern perfumery, all the Roudnitska legacy, and they managed to ruin that legacy. Demachy must be pulling his hair out.

    I fervently pray that Hermes withstands every hostility; they're growing too much and therefore attract lustful urges from the behemoth...

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  26. S,

    it's good to find that my bitchiness is not without good substantiation and corroboration, thanks darling.

    It's as you say; there is a counterfeiting of (perfume) history being commited before our very eyes. I'm reminded of Thucydides in so many ways in this modern economy that resembles a tyrannical regime, "words started to lose their meaning".

    My own suspicion, coupled with the fact that I see the smaller bottles of Miss Dior original online out of stock, is that they plan to phaze it out of the mainstream circuit and put the fragrance into the Les Creation de Mr.Dior sub-line (hey, it fits!), which is more "reserchée" (and accordingly limit distribution). Two birds in one stone.

    Be sure to place head of the behemoth as victim ;-)

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  27. Masha,

    I'm not even sure! It sounds weird and wrong anyway. I don't think the average American is conductive to what is being fed with, it's a mystery how things get cemented, probably due to media overexposure.

    Thanks for commenting. Hope you like it here.

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  28. Natalia,

    it's getting rather disenchanting, and please note 2011 was a good year for perfume too (there were credible releases even in mainstream IMO).

    The fact that the market (or rather the dictating taken from above, I presume) has taken a gigantic eraser and erased everything before 2000 as "old lady" (and before 1995 as "old man") is the grossest testament to the power of mind-washing. Devalue quality as undesirable and present mediocrity as the latest fad. Bravo, you just created a monster! (and totally ruined the criterion of an entire generation in one fell sweep)

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  29. D,

    thanks honey! :-)

    I'm deeply thankful for artisanal perfumers indeed. They toil with things they believe in and in the end their augmenting success is indication they were right on target all along.

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  30. Sombreuil (lovely name),

    glad you enjoyed :-)

    You know, I would have given them the benefit of a doubt if they had the guts like Lutens (or even Guerlain, to some degree, via Delacourte) to actually explain some moves and admit that reformulations were under way. But they won't let Demachy talk (even though the guy is trying to preserve things, he's a Grasseois after all) and they don't issue a clear statement on the state of their collection either. It's all confusion and blurriness at Dior. I find that sketchy and borderline dishonest on the part of LVMH.

    I sure hope that someone in an official capacity comes on board and clears out what exactly will happen with the distribution, formula and name of the classic Miss Dior. They owe it to us.

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  31. S,

    Jean Carles, Paul Vacher, Edmond Roudnitska...some of the top top best and they're letting it go to seed. I could weep.

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  32. M,

    good point and one phenomenon of which I have been spared, thank God.
    I don't know why the American consumer is so dumped on, honestly. You'd think they think people are sheeple, the way they brain-wash the public. From personal friendships I can see they're not entirely convinced, so what's happening?

    I fear I never really understood the reverence that Chanel is getting re: scents lately. They're issuing mediocre things in the last few years as well. Only exception a few Exclusifs and that Premiere stuff. I do get it that they preserved the Beaux creations better than others did with their own legacy.

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  33. TFC,

    thanks, it makes me feel less crazied. :-)

    Snooki...well, what's up with this girl? All that cultural background (Chilean, Italian American) and she's coming up with that style? I mean, why?

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  34. Nikk,

    it's an embarassment of riches, actually. They're both very bad, especially since Miss Dior original is a shadow of its former self anyway.

    I hadn't thought about them making Miss Dior Cherie more "classy", thanks for bringing this here, how interesting. That's an intriguing, logical thought and one which shot them in the foot, IMHO!!

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  35. E,

    the downward spiral of Sephora stores is a modern phenomenon that should become a case study. They started with so much promise!

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  36. Yes, absolutely.

    No need to die of despair yet, we have Hermes.

    I'm glad that during the few years of my perfume obsession, I scored, among others, the old Miss Dior, maybe from the 1980's, which is indeed an old lady fragrance. In the good way. I admit that I like Shalimar Initial and some of the newer Chanel flankers but yeah, in general, mainstream sucks big time. I got a bottle of neroli so they, whoever they may be, can stick their kiwi and cupcakes up their... well, you know where.

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  37. Anonymous08:55

    I cant agree more! I dont understand why companies think americans want crap...its so irritating. I guess at 28 im an "old lady" what happened to quality products? Im sick and tired of the bean counters!! And UGH Snookie! Absolutely disgusting.

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  38. Nancy C.10:50

    A righteous rant!

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  39. Thanks for the rant! Just as bad as the phony Miss Dior pictured here are all of the reformulations of the classics, including the watered-down reformulation of the "real" Miss Dior. I was given a bottle of it a couple of years ago and it wasn't even a shadow of its former glorious self. I'll stick with ebay.

    But I fear that IFRA regulations will make it impossible to make a decent perfume at all in the near future, even if a perfumer in one of the large houses wanted to and was given the freedom. Some of the niche houses continue to produce decent releases, but even they seem to be relying more and more on sharp, spiky wood notes, sinus-coating white musks and boring cleaned up patchoulis. Sigh...

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  40. It's all sh....pardon me, garbage. The shortsighted beancounters are running everything, including my own country, right into the ground. Frooty kool-aid perfumes, clothing (and everything else) made by armies of Chinese semi-slaves living in prison conditions, and an oligarchy that wants to take it all and run.

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  41. Amen! And one day, Snooki will be *too old* to be a young, supposedly hip TV star and will have to take her place amongst us *old ladies*!!! Karma is hell!!!

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  42. Anonymous13:14

    Sephora eliminated carrying several fragrances I bought there, too--and they weren't cheap, either!

    I've come to the conclusion all you need is either happy-happy-joy-joy packaging or else tattoo designs all over your stuff and Sephora will have it on their shelves.

    Sheesh.

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  43. AnnemarieC,

    I missed your comment above, but saw it now.

    Yeah, isn't it strange how there is so much sketchy behind-the-scenes action at Dior? The ownership of the formula being the most important thing, which poses its own very delicious gossip...

    As I mentioned in one of my comments above, I expect Miss Dior L'Original will join Les Creations de Mr.Dior one of these days and become a more "limited distribution thing". Travesty if you ask me, since it's a shadow of its former glory, so might as well stay in the more mass line.

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  44. L,

    I knew we'd see eye to eye on this one. ;-)

    You're right Hermes is standing as the bastion of true luxury and true intergrity. But much as I love it as a fragrance house (among other things) myself, I realise that for many the JCE aesthetic doesn't quite cut it, they want more ooomph...

    I found myself liking Shalimar Initial as well, much to my surprise (I did not like other iterations, apart from Eau Legere), but for what it is. If they had put a label of Shalimar and ditched the original in the archives catalogue without a trace I would feel different.
    Mainstream is very afraid to take any chances: But look what the great modern classics involve; taking a chance (no, not the Chanel swirl). Opium, Angel, Hypnotic Poison, J'Adore. Like them or not, these are not bland, demure scents. But beancounters are aiming to please everyone and they end up pleasing no one in particular.

    Kiwi and cupcakes is a recipe for nausea at my house. (yours too, I suppose)

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  45. Anon,

    it's totally mind-boggling how they want to cajole the greatest market in the world (US) and at the same time dump it down so much, exactly as you say.
    Do they really think people are imbeciles and won't know any better? Or do they just calculate on them realising that not everything is top notch but buying anyway? I don't know which is worse!!

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  46. Nancy,

    thanks, it makes me feel a little better to see people are equally annoyed as I am.

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  47. Melissa,

    thanks darling, glad you enjoyed it.

    Indeed I rely on my vintage trove for such classics; I feel that tampering with them is counterfeiting recorded history, much as I sympathise with the plight of perfumers of a certain age being put in the position to have their palette so limited.

    I'm rather more optimistic than you on the new frontier (and on the artisanal scene who can venture outside the very strict terms self-imposed to a certain degree), but you're right, much of the produced stuff doesn't really give much hope, does it?
    Possibly all the white musks and clean patchoulis are just the vast exploitation of a trend though, instead of inability to use other things, right? I mean, I sure hope so!

    Thanks for commenting, hope you're very well!

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  48. P,

    as usual with your wiseness and background in a comparable industry you turn this into what it is: a political situation, a grander scheme of new-capitalism at its worst.
    Debasement of the traditional quality and of the craftmanship of local hands in the interests of augmenting profits on the cheap. Pffft!

    We live in dangerous times, as shown in so many instances lately, not just perfume-wise.

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  49. Marsha,

    thanks. You've got an excellent point.

    You know, being not so over the hill myself, I do sympathise with not wanting to be "antiquated" ("perfume of an old lady" has such a bad ring to it, why can't she say older women or mature women?) and catering to the young, since that's her demographic; but surely the young can be spared the scentful atrocities? Why not present them with something sweet but tasteful? Cupcakes? Cupcakes??? Pleeeeeease.

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  50. Flameelf,

    very possibly that might be so!
    Thanks for commenting.

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  51. Anonymous15:15

    So tired of these young girls who think they're gonna be 21 for the rest of their lives! More and more you see older men in New York dating trophy young girls. For these men, it's an ego thing, for a few screwed-up young girls it's a daddy thing but for the most part it's purely materialistic, specially in this economy. That was the bad news but the good news is after talking to some of those middle-aged guys, they're the ones who dump these young girls after realising a few thousands of dollars later this was not real and despite the fact they have killer bodies, even the sex was bad, these girls don't do certain things to a 45 yr old man - women their age do those things!! ;-))

    I don't even go to Sephora anymore, I'd be too afraid of having a Snooki heart attack! I've been spending money again hunting down vintage on ebay - now I only buy from sellers who accept returns because 1/4 of the vintage stuff I buy smells off.


    Emma

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  52. Emma,

    with your experience in vintage I'm not surprised you raise the bar high (and you do well!).
    I couldn't imagine you around Snooki scents, I'd have a heart attack if I saw this sight! LOL

    Well, on the other issue: there's something intrisically vulgar about exchanging one's youth for material posessions, isn't there? I mean, youth is priceless, there's no comparison really. Young people act as batteries for the old (it's one reason why people are always so cooey around small children, that's my theory at least) and when they're used they get discharged and discarded, if we're talking about the sexual arena. I'm surprised that the very young don't realise it sometimes, perhaps in their distorted reality handed down by the prevalent media ("you have to make it very young and you have to have heaps of money to make it, no matter how you come to it").
    It's an attitude that is totally alien to me. I can't comprehend it at all!

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  53. Please don't say that they're going to replace the original Miss Dior with the pink one? I am indeed shocked and horrified! they can come out with stupid flankers or whatever but taking the name & replacing a masterpiece with something that is i'm sure can never beat the original juice is utterly unacceptable! And pink? For God sake... Leave the original Miss Dior alone!
    Good article by the way.

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  54. ...And no pink Diorissimo please!

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  55. Anonymous16:42

    How wonderful to read your brilliant rant - my husband gets the benefit of my own rantings practically every day!

    How on earth can we get them (and all the other perfume houses) to STOP DOING IT!?

    The reformulation/cheapening of our favourites is overwhelming, and I fear we can not hold it back.

    But thank you so much for shouting about it. We should all keep campaigning.

    Jillie

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  56. all i can say is,
    YES YES YES YES YES YES.
    oh, and, i love you for saying it all.

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  57. Anonymous17:18

    Thank You for the link to Dior. Yes this will be my Christmas present.

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  58. Yes, Yes, and Yes.

    Just because I'm American doesn't mean I (1) want to buy syrup fit for a 12 year old (2) don't notice when a company debases it's classics but charges the same price and (3) won't abandon said company for one that will respect me, my demographic, and my money. Forcing a perfumista to frantically search the secondary markets for a quality item is short-sighted beyond belief and disrespectful. Don't drag down the old to push the cheap new juice. Duh.

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  59. Elena, we're rebuilding the kitchen and it's my fourth week without a stove. I learned to cook rice in the microwave oven (which skill needs to be refined yet, though) but I long for food. Real cooked food. I guess I'm starting to hallucinate because I'm sure I smelled onion-roasted pork in the office and I'm sure it was not someone's lunch.

    In this view, the idea of kiwi cupcakes seems rather inviting.


    I agree that ditching Shalimar would be a crime, too. It also seemed that the Initial could be named pretty much differently, it veers away in the iris direction quite a bit. I have a year of iris so before it gets out of my head, I'll like Initial more than the good ole Shalimar. Funnily enough, I have a decant of the extrait in a vintage Bourjois' Kobako bottle. And a full bottle is on the way... yay for obscure and semi-obscure vintages. Some of them are pretty mediocre, too, but at least they're more fun than Kiwi-and-cupcake Snooki.

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  60. Noni06:30

    I don't understand why the formula and name of original perfumes aren't better protected? It's like if someone would do a manga cartoon picture out of Mona Lisa, put it in Louvren and pretend it was the real one?? In Sweden we have a special type of sausage (Falukorv), where the recipe is very strict. If you don't follow it exactly, you may have a good product anyway, but you're not allowed to sell it as "Falukorv".
    But obviously you can put any pink juice in any bottle and call it whatever. I can see in the future the Shalimar Initial morphs into....Shalimar!
    It's a bizarre world.

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  61. Thank you for the rant! I agree with everything.

    Personally, I couldn't be bothered with even trying the current Miss Dior, I have a stash of vintage, why try something when you know it's inferior? I wouldn't mind getting a taste of the Miss Dior Cherie that's been reformulated, but there's so many, I wouldn't know where to begin.

    I lose all respect for a company who renames things, or slaps a label on one juice calling it another. Like the Opium fiasco. Of course all the SAs will insist it's the same thing. If I spent x amount of $ on a bottle, got home and found it was something else I'd be be furious.

    When I was younger my mother told me not to buy perfumes off the street vendors (like in New York, I don't know if they still sell perfumes on the streets there anymore) because it was watered down or fake or whatever. Today you're practically taking a chance buying it from a store unless you know what's going on, know about reformulations, ingredient restrictions.

    And no cupcakes, beach flowers or kiwi for me. I'm a 43 year old female, I wear perfume, grown up perfume, deal with it.

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  62. Loved your "rant" and I'm right there with ya!

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  63. I think I became interested in perfumes at the wrong time! Everything out there is blah and emotionless..... I guess it never used to be that way!? Laws are being passed constantly limiting what we can and cant use in perfume. By the time Im 30 the only fragrances left will be scented waters and Victoria's Seceret body sprays! L by Lolita Lempicka is my all time favorite. The scent is so powerful therefor its too good to be true. If L ever gets refourmulated I may fall in to a depression.

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  64. People no longer respect what is old and great. This generation doesn't understand that to appreciate/make true art, you need to understand its history first.

    I'm 23, but I fully agree with you. I sing and, if I get famous one day, vow to put down Dior (publicly) as much as possible for this mistake. Hopefully I'll have some influence :P

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  65. The only aptly named perfume is Poison. No matter how "good" or bad they smell, perfumes are full of toxins which can cause a number of health problems for the person wearing the perfume and those around them. (A 1991 study exposed a number of horrific substances found in perfumes - like formaldehyde! - and there have been MANY more chemicals introduced since then!)
    Clearly these companies couldn't care less about our health.

    It's time to ditch the chemicals and opt for just smelling clean. :)
    That's what I rant about these days.

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  66. Chloe10:25

    Personally,I liked Snooki's fragrance. I had it, but I got rid of it as the lasting power was very poor.

    It's not appealing to your demographic, so of course you won't like it. It's the same with music, popular books, etc. Same applies to perfume.

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  67. Chloe,

    thanks for chiming in.

    Excellent point and you're right. I need to point out that several celebrity perfumes are competently made; the trouble is that they're most often boring. Try one, you've tried them all (or so it seems to us who are very much into perfume). The mere fact that you say the lasting power was very poor however points out that it was technically not very good.

    I suppose the gripe with the Snooki fragrance isn't the perfume per se (I haven't smelled it and will take your word for it that it's pleasant), but the fact that there was this condescending promo and the quote about it from Snooki herself. It's demeaning to both old and young women, if you think about it.
    No offense to sweet smells; many of us like them in some moderation too! ;-)

    Again, thanks for taking the time to comment. Hope you come back again.

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